Well, this week brought another series of murders in the name of “The Religion of Peace”. These acts of savagery have become regrettably commonplace, but the reaction was different this time, because our betters, the relativist preachers and lecturers of the media were kin to those brutally murdered to avenge the honor of a god and prophet too impotent to tend to his own vengeance. The chaos and confliction endemic to our “thought leaders” was telling.

We witnessed large media outlets publicly take pains to be careful how they reported the story, out of fear of offending people who have a nasty and largely unchecked habit of killing anyone who offends them…in other words, pretty much anyone else. Despite the near toxic irony of these media outlets being in a business that relies of the freedom of expression, including the freedom not only to offend, but to gore sacred cows with impunity, this was unsurprising, as these same outlets have been willing participants in a movement to shame, ostracize, and ultimately silence others who “offend” those who have been deemed by our betters to be beyond the reproach, criticism, questioning or mockery of others. While the New York Times, MSNBC, and social justice warriors in every walk of society haven’t yet taken to killing those who have offended their delicate sensibilities with words, they have displayed absolutely NO reluctance to use their fainting couches as bludgeons against anyone who dares to utter anything that they deem unworthy of being said. While cries of “racism” are the general default silencer, they have been unafraid to use “intolerance” and “white privilege”, and “______phobia” as well.

I would like to say that I’ve enjoyed seeing the bludgeon of “offense” used against the very people who have brought this perversion of our fundamental freedoms into favor, but I can’t. Instead, I’m infuriated. As a white Christian male, husband, and father, it has been open season on me, in my own culture, for most of my life.

And in response, I HAVE KILLED NO ONE.

I haven’t killed sitcom writers, who portray me as a bumbling idiot, worthy of derision from my wife, and contempt from my children.

I haven’t killed self-designated feminists, who seek to blame me for the oppression of women in a society in which I could, and have, worked for women, and in which I have known them as intellectual and spiritual equals.

I haven’t killed African-Americans, despite the ubiquitous claims of my personal practice of oppression, or enjoyment of it because “racism” and “white privilege” from racist grievance pimps, race hustlers, and their willing accomplices in academia and the media.

I haven’t murdered schoolchildren and other innocents, or suffered a massive psychotic break, despite believing in the Second Amendment and deeply resenting government’s numerous violations of it, and intrusions on to my right to bear arms, and the portrayal of myself and others who hold such beliefs by opportunistic politicians, media figures, and “academics”, as a wackjob and loon.

I haven’t killed those who maintain that I, and others like me are “bitterly clinging” to our Bibles and guns, and that we are members of an oppressive religion. In fact, for a member of an “oppressive religion”, I am a failure, a characteristic I share with many others like me, as we haven’t “persecuted” anyone, despite continued infringement of our First Amendment rights by our own government, and a judiciary determined to ignore history, re-write the Constitution, and impose an interpretation of ten tortured words that would be completely foreign to those who penned them, and the man misquoted and misapplied to invoke this bizarro conception of what they had wrought.

If we were to compare grievances, I’ve just demonstrated that the “offences” to me, and others like me far exceed the followers of Islam, who “unexpectedly” are at the heart of every act of bloody savagery committed for the honor of a religion or its prophet in our world today. And yet, here I stand, not yet having beheaded a single person, or not strapping on a bomb, and detonating it, and myself in a public place,and not attacking another religion’s house of worship…such as a Buddhist temple, synagogue, cathedral, or even the offices of NPR or the New York Times ( I wouldn’t want our secular humanist brethren to feel left out). This isn’t an accident; this is by design.

Because our betters have been so successful in using the fainting couch to cow us into creating a right “not to be offended” out of whole cloth, and elevating it to a position where it is far superior to all other rights, they have created their own gag, and contributed to the Barbarian’s belief that they are entitled to act like Barbarians, without thought or concern to consequences for doing so. They have contributed to the “easy” response. I’m not shocked, in the era of hashtag “diplomacy”, that I’m seeing “Je suis Charlie” all over the web. But I’m not impressed. The Fourth Estate surrendered its legitimacy, and surrendered its duty as a stalwart defender of freedom of expression. It did this when it tried to stifle speech, rather than engage in it. It did this when it tried to shut down the marketplace of ideas, rather than compete in it. It did this when it exceeded its authority and tried to make a new right, not defend the ones central to their purpose. And because they did this, they conceded our rights to the Barbarians. They gave the enemies of civilization a veto. And if civilization is to survive, we are going to have to step up, and do what our self-appointed betters no longer have the courage to do.

If your god commands that you kill to defend his honor, he’s a pretty impotent god.

If your god tells you that anyone who doesn’t believe in you is worthy of any punishment you care to make them suffer, he is a petty and impotent god.

If your god demands that you kill anyone who leaves his service, he’s a bloodthirsty and impotent god.

If your god has offered to reward murders in his name by giving you other humans for your pleasure in the afterlife, he is a barbaric and impotent god.

If you believe that it is your duty and obligation to behead those who insult Islam, then you are not worthy of the company of human beings.

And if you would use the tolerance and conventions of civilization as a means to infiltrate and undermine society until you have the numbers to assert yourself by bloodshed, then you deserve an extreme segregation from civilization that must be exacted to make it happen…until you learn, or until you aren’t a threat to others.

The words of a Facebook acquaintance hung there on the group page, taunting my mind away from a more basic Sunday morning meditation. It worked, and my mind started milling the words, prompting my immediate rejoinder “If that were true, it would work for everyone, non?”

But the more I thought about it, the more I came to consider the “wrongness” that lead to the statement being made in the first place. I realized that it isn’t about the rank hypocrisy that sees nothing wrong with an entitlement for some people to invoke “offense” as a means to stop discussion, debate, questions, behavior or beliefs they do not like, but is incapable of even considering that other parties might be offended by the discussion, debate, questions, behavior or beliefs of the those invoking “offense”, let alone capable of invoking “offense” themselves.

Don’t get me wrong. I think being able to end all discussion, debate, questions, behavior, or beliefs by claiming to be “offended” is unhealthy for a free society, offensive to liberty, and childish in the extreme. As long as it is impossible to have an honest conversation, because it will almost certainly “offend” someone, it will be impossible to address any issue of import. It doesn’t take long before this will lead to financial impairment, social impairment, and impairment of national security. (See President Obama, Second Term)

But the really, really odious part if this is that I often hear “Offense” uttered like an incantation from many of the same people who speak of “reason” being superior to faith, and a basis for them to assume an intellectual superiority that they clearly haven’t earned, while they often put faith in “facts” that have expiration dates due to constantly changing nature of scientific paradigms. The illogic of presuming that rights which are guaranteed by law are subject to override if only they can apply their completely subjective responses to the exercise of those rights would be laughable if it wasn’t pursued with such zeal and dedication. Orwell himself couldn’t have conceived of the sheer scope of the vanity and delusion that have combined to impose a bizzaro-world rhetoric to such a degree that sincerity and directness are relegated to criminal status.

The saddest aspect to this current state of affairs is that too many of us allowed ourselves to be cowed by this practice, as if offending someone, or at least those granted a de facto privileged status by the arbiters of acceptability, is a combination of the worst sin and the worst crime that a person can commit. The fact is that this extraordinary power and cancer on society wouldn’t be powerful at all if we didn’t let it. But this requires a boldness to push back, that too few have the backbone to exhibit. Start responding by saying “SO???” Ask them to explain why they are suffering from the alleged “offense”. Put the onus on them to prove why it should matter to you, and to everyone else, rather than giving what has morphed into a generic and reflexive complaint the presumption of legitimacy without the burden of proving it. It is your duty as a citizen and a member of society to engage people who don’t want you to engage in an honest discourse. It is your birthright to be able to do so without the threat of sanction by government, or those who want to destroy the very way you live, and censor your very thoughts.

*The one that leftists keep seeing after the words “…shall not be infringed.” in the Second Amendment. The one that apparently prefaces a litany of provisos, limitations, restrictions, and “common sense regulations” that are nothing of the sort.

These apparently include a government right to ban firearms that look scarier than other firearms, including the dreaded “black” firearms, magazines (clips are what you put in your hair) that are hold 10 rounds or more at a time, and the need to ask permission of the entity that the right was intended to defend against.

It’s long past time for elected officials to produce their copies of these important document, or come to terms with the fact that the asterisk, and its accompanying litany DOES NOT EXIST.

And for those who want to conjure justifications in support of overreach by an entity that has enough trouble dealing with matters that are actually under its jurisdiction, here is some food for thought:

I do not have to express a NEED to exercise a RIGHT, and yes, the burden is on you to make the case otherwise. That would include a showing that NEED was actually a serious consideration in the debates that gave us the Second Amendment. Good Luck with that.

For those who want to suggest that limitations are appropriate and permissible because “the Founders didn’t envision machine guns”, I have two responses:
(1) If you accept this as valid, and I don’t, then they also didn’t envision all of the other technological advances that touch other Amendments in the Bill of Rights either, like radio, television or computers. Perhaps we need to license these uses as well, if only to avoid “abuses of the First Amendment”, which as everyone knows, can destroy a person’s lifetime of work establishing their integrity with a single broadcast, or completely taint their ability to obtain a fair trial by their peers…just ask the Duke LaCrosse Team, or George Zimmerman. While we’re at it, maybe thermal imaging technology needs to be off-limits to law enforcement because its use without a warrant violates the Fourth Amendment? And maybe other electronic surveillance should be restricted as well. Surely the Founders, who were suspicious of government power, would have objected to being monitored when in public, as it presumes guilt in the public at large, and touches on issues of freedom of association and self-incrimination?

(2) The facts don’t bear this out. The Founders and Framers lived in an age when scientific advances were a part of daily life. The history of that time had already shown advances in firearms. Where their grandfathers might have owned blunderbusses, muskets were ubiquitous at the time of the revolution, and refinements were being made to those during their lifetimes, as this correspondence from Thomas Jefferson demonstrates. What is more, these men wanted to encourage scientific and technological advances. That’s why Congress was specifically granted the authority “To promote the Progress of Science and useful Arts, by securing for limited Times to Authors and Inventors the exclusive Right to their respective Writings and Discoveries;” in Article I, Section 8 of the Constitution. These were not stupid men. They were not legislators who would rush though a bill trampling on the rights of their constituents, and do so in such a hurry that they would forget to include exceptions necessary to allow law enforcement to do its work. They were careful. They were deliberate. The reams of paper recording their debates on these issues show this to be true, and it is insulting to their genius to glibly, and in a perfunctory manner, to presume that they simply failed to take into account the advancing nature of science when they authored the Bill of Rights. If they had intended a limitation, one would have been put there. And that is the correct legal interpretation of a statute as well.

To those who want to argue that it is an archaic document, written for a different time, logic is not your friend either. It was written in the aftermath of a conflict where we had thrown off the yoke of a government that did as it pleased, to the detriment of those living under it here, and without a concern for how its actions were perceived or received, and when government’s inclination was to levy numerous taxes to finance its exercise of power that reached even into our homes. Depending on where you lived, daily life held a number of dangers, which could be, and frequently were defended against by individuals with firearms, because law enforcement was limited in its ability to respond in a timely fashion, or because it was non-existent. And it was a time when many still harbored a deep mistrust for the new government which had displaced the old, if only because they were wise and educated enough, or experienced enough to understand that governments have a way of consolidating power, and cloaking subsequent tyrannies in the garments of benevolence. Many people would rightly maintain that the circumstances haven’t changed, only the players. But even if those of you who still believe the “archaic” law argument, even in the face of overwhelming evidence from other countries who have stripped their law-abiding citizens of their firearms rights, you are in luck. The Framers left you a mechanism by which to change it. It’s called “AMENDMENT”, and it is the ONLY legitimate means by which you may ACTUALLY insert the asterisk and all of the baggage that you currently pretend is there. This cannot lawfully be achieved through Federal Legislation, because the words “…shall not be infringed.” contain no exception for federal legislation. This cannot be lawfully achieved through state or local legislation, because incorporation through the 14th Amendment has made the Bill of Rights applicable to the states, as well. (And for those leftists who suddenly discover both the 9th and 10th Amendments in their copies of the Constitution, I would remind you that these are for the rights NOT addressed in the Constitution…including those already addressed in the Bill of Rights.)

Amendment is also the only legitimate process because the Constitution is the only legitimate “social contract” that governs our society. And whether you like it or not, there are a number of people who have grown up under it, and ordered their lives around its guarantees. If this social contract is to be changed, ALL who are affected by it have the right to input that the Amendment process guarantees. Such a change is not to be attempted by a legislative body alone, especially when that legislature’s control over such matters was specifically and deliberately curtailed.

For those of you who want to wave around the bloody bodies of some children to support the usurpation of power, you need to educate yourselves about what happened, including coming to grips with the facts that the “common sense reforms” you seek would have done NOTHING to prevent the tragedies you’re weeping over.

Finally, legislation by emotion is an error. When you are so dead set on restricting other people’s liberty that you have measures proposed by legislators who don’t even have a basic understanding of what it is they would outlaw, it is a problem. It further denigrates the legitimacy of those who would legislate such measures, and the whole of their actions. It is akin to having an appendectomy performed by an auto mechanic, or a journalist. If you propose to regulate something, you had better understand what you’re talking about, or you risk being ignored, and bypassed…kind of like what the President does to Congress now.

Gun Control doesn’t fix the problem, which is PEOPLE. What it does do is make masacres like this more likely, especially in “gun free zones”, which if you think about it, are the ultimate expression of gun control. Laws that say “you can’t have a gun here”. Obviously, that only disarms people who are inclined to follow the law.

And before anyone starts hyperventilating, I’m NOT advocating that kids carry guns to school. What I am suggesting is that we allow those who we entrust with keeping our kids safe while they are in the school’s custody the ability to actually DO SO, because when seconds count, the police are only minutes away.

I know this may come as a shock to Ms. Mitchell, but the Red Cross is not the only charity that goes into disaster areas to offer relief. Perhaps she has never heard of The Salvation Army, Samaritan’s Purse, and any other number of religiously affiliated relief charities. Maybe she simply hasn’t considered these other charities because they are religiously affiliated. Or perhaps it hadn’t occurred to her that there might be more than one charity acting in the wake of Sandy. Or maybe she hasn’t figured out that the Red Cross can’t dictate how OTHER people’s charity gets gathered and distributed. And not all charities have to “repackage” donations. When people need food and water, you GIVE them food and water. It doesn’t have to be complicated, especially when you have already coordinated with churches in the area, and know what the needs are.

These organizations DON’T turn away donations, and many of them smaller overhead expenses that the Red Cross has. They also don’t ask for donations after disasters and then NOT use the funds raised on relief for THAT disaster, like the Red Cross did after Katrina. Don’t get me wrong. I’m not against what the Red Cross does. I’m always glad when there is an alternative to government assistance, if only because there is no institutionalization of that “assistance”. But I reject the notion that they are the arbiters of what is or is not acceptable assistance.

But perhaps the most telling part about all of this is the assumption of authority, and condemnation of individuals who dare to not do what they were told to do. It is the idea that meaningful help can only be that which is regimented and organized according to the dictates of “experts”. It’s charity, for God’s sake. It is simple. It can be small. And is SHOULD start with the individual. But that doesn’t work for people who believe that we have to be controlled. Or people who believe that experts are the only ones who have opinions that matter. Or that authority must be ceded to a monolithic institution, because it is the only one qualified to have it. It doesn’t matter whether that is donating to relief efforts as the Red Cross being the only acceptable donation, or the belief that people shouldn’t be responsible for their own safety, and that as a result, only the police should be allowed to have firearms. This kind of thinking is contrary to the American Experience. Hell, if experts were to be obeyed, and were the only ones with opinions that mattered, we never would have fought against the British for our Freedom. The experts knew that the British Army was unbeatable. If the experts were the authority, we likely would have never come here, because everyone knew the world was flat. And going to the moon? Forget about it.

And yet the indoctrination must hold, which is why Marty Bashir, The World’s Most Annoying British Twit™ doubled down with this chyron “Romney Donated Goods Drive Against Red Cross Guidelines”…reinforcing the impression that individuals must not defy authority…even when that authority has been conferred by those who think they know better, or assumed by those authorities.

I guess I just don’t know who the authorities are, since I have readied a donation to the Salvation Army.

The Blaze today has the story of Hustler’s photoshop of S.E. Cupp. While this is emblematic of the REAL “War on [Conservative] Women”…the one that the usual suspects have no interest in talking about, it has been rightly pointed out that all though Hustler was both good enough to provide a disclaimer next to the photoshop…which will undoubtedly NOT accompany the image as it makes its way around the web, and was also good enough to be honest about the reasons for doing so, in creating this image, they have forever marked her in a graphically sexual manner over a political disagreement.

While the National Organization for Women has not yet issued a statement, it is not anticipated that it will offer anything more than a pro forma protest, if any.

The Hustler explanation states:

S.E. Cupp is a lovely young lady who read too much Ayn Rand in high school and ended up joining the dark side. Cupp, an author and media commentator who often shows up on Fox News programs, is undeniably cute. But her hotness is diminished when she espouses dumb ideas like defunding Planned Parenthood. Perhaps the method pictured here is Ms. Cupp’s suggestion for avoiding an unwanted pregnancy.

President Obama, who inserted himself in a similar controversy earlier this year when he personally called Sandra Fluke, the Georgetown Law Student and Activist who was called a “slut” on air by Rush Limbaugh, has so far remained silent on this matter. Fluke, despite voluntarily enrolling at a Catholic school, testified in a public hearing about the need for the school to offer health care plans that would pay for the birth control of female students, which she claimed could cost upwards of $3000 over the course of a standard law school attendance. The number was claimed to be based not on a standard that would use either condoms, or “generic” birth control pills available at the nearest Target or Wal-Mart Stores, but upon the exceptions to the rule, who claimed the more expensive formulations were necessary to treat other conditions, an explanation not given until after the figure was criticized and ridiculed by Limbaugh and others. For the school to offer such a plan , it would have to go against church teaching and doctrine on the issue of birth control.

So because Ms. Cupp opposes PUBLIC funding of Klanned Parenthood, an organization that has undoubtedly been of great utility over the years to a readership that was more than happy to avoid the responsibilities of fatherhood that would have been incurred by sport screwing and the objectification of women, she deserves to be photoshopped with a penis in her mouth…an image that will undoubtedly be seen one day by her children, and the rest of her family.

It seems a far cry from a January day in Tucson, Arizona when President mustered enough sincerity to say these words with apparent conviction:

Savage, “famous” for a sex column and grabbing headlines for such brave and unbully-like acts such as naming gay-sex effluvia after Senator Rick Santorum, and statements about how much he wants to F**k Santorum, and how he wants all Republicans dead recently gave a Sheridan apology for his bullying of high school students at a recent conference in which he launched into a tirade on the Bible, and then call the students who chose to remove themselves from his 15 minutes of hate by calling them “pansies” as they departed from his expertly rendered discussion against bullying.

Now, for those who like some justification with their assertions, you’ll note that he cites little to support his claims of the Bible containing “bullshit”. The Bible supports slavery, and was used to justify slavery? Tell it to the abolitionists who were waiving it with equal committment, Mr. Savage. Christians eat shellfish, and therefore are hypocrites, Mr. Savage? Tell it to Jesus, who said

14 When He had called all the multitude to Himself, He said to them, “Hear Me, everyone, and understand: 15 There is nothing that enters a man from outside which can defile him; but the things which come out of him, those are the things that defile a man. 16 If anyone has ears to hear, let him hear!”17 When He had entered a house away from the crowd, His disciples asked Him concerning the parable. 18 So He said to them, “Are you thus without understanding also? Do you not perceive that whatever enters a man from outside cannot defile him, 19 because it does not enter his heart but his stomach, and is eliminated, thus purifying all foods?”

Mark 7:14-19

There are also 6 other New Testament references that make it clear to anyone capable of reading and understanding, that this would be one of those taboos that isn’t taboo to a Christian, meaning, of course, that Mr. Savage was not correct when he decided to belittle the beliefs of a captive audience who did not have the opportunity to respond…much like bullies often do.

Missing the opportunity for demonstrating any real understanding, he recently apologized on his website, displaying the same tact and wisdom that has so recently put him back in the spotlight in an uncomfortable way:

I didn’t call anyone’s religion bullshit. I did say that there is bullshit—”untrue words or ideas”—in the Bible. That is being spun as an attack on Christianity. Which is bullshhh… which is untrue. I was not attacking the faith in which I was raised. I was attacking the argument that gay people must be discriminated against—and anti-bullying programs that address anti-gay bullying should be blocked (or exceptions should be made for bullying “motivated by faith”)—because it says right there in the Bible that being gay is wrong. Yet the same people who make that claim choose to ignore what the Bible has to say about a great deal else. I did not attack Christianity. I attacked hypocrisy. My remarks can only be read as an attack on all Christians if you believe that all Christians are hypocrites. Which I don’t believe.

No, Dan. When you attack the basis for someone else’s beliefs, you are attacking those beliefs, and the difference between those whom you mocked when they shook the dust off their heels and departed, and you, is that they have read and understood that which clearly eludes you. But then, with a plank in your eye that is the size of a redwood, I’m surprised that you can drive a car without running into anything. But then, since people still hire you to talk about fighting back against bullying, my surprise is tempered with resigned disappointment.

"I want these “…and I’m a communist” dumbshits to have a Coming to Jesus moment that they will NEVER forget. I want them staring in to the eyes of every American who knows that government has very specifically designated roles, and are fed-up to their eyeballs with the overeaching, paternalistic, oppressive monster that the Left (with help from the establishment Right) set loose on us. I want those greedy, lazy, control-freaky bastards quaking with fear when they are met with an electorate determined to wrest their liberties, including the right to fail, back from a government that would enslave us all to the service of a soul-killing mediocrity. I want their asses so horrifiyingly and memorably whipped that the mere memory will cow a century’s worth of socialist/communist/marxist acoyltes into an ashamed silence."
________________________________
"When a strict interpretation of the Constitution, according to the fixed rules which govern the interpretation of laws, is abandoned, and the theoretical opinions of individuals are allowed to control its meaning, we no longer have a Constitution, we are under the government of individual men, who for the time being have power to declare what the Constitution is according to their own views of what it ought to mean."--Justice Curtis, Dissent, Dred Scott v. Sanford

"The very idea of power, and the right of the people to establish government, presupposes the duty of every individual to obey the established Government. All obstructions to the execution of its laws, all combinations and associations, under whatever plausible character, with the real design to direct, control, counteract, or awe the regular deliberations and actions of the constituted authorities, are destructive of this fundamental principle, and of fatal tendency."- George Washington

The punishment which the wise suffer who refuse to take part in the government, is to live under the government of worse men.
-Plato

One of the penalties for refusing to participate in politics is that you end up being governed by your inferiors.
-Plato